inb4 huge semantic discussion about "rights" leading to a "First Amendment" vs "private company" comment thread that repeats the same talking points ad nauseum.

inb4 huge semantic discussion about "rights" leading to a "First Amendment" vs "private company" comment thread that repeats the same talking points ad nauseum. My own take on this is that we've unwittingly placed huge swathes of newly created de-facto 'public spaces' into private hands. In the same way that I advocate for ISPs being forced to be neutral in delivery of content, I think that we need legal machinery that prevents infrastructure (the 'roads' of our new cyber-society) from being politicized in the way that DDOS-protection or domain registrars are now becoming. Defense of free speech (principle/culture here, not just 1A) is ALWAYS going to be a defense of 'monsters', because they are the only ones that need defending, and because if you don't set up boundaries, eventually this power gets used more and more and the boundaries of acceptable discourse shrink. Does anyone actually think that this is the last time that this power will get used, or that it's the least extreme target that will get hit? We're ceding a lot of general society and discourse from the realm of public law and transparent oversight into the realm of private and arbitrary decisions by those who control enforcement of vague terms of service. All I can say is that I hope we're careful and can build new social structures that get what we actually want in the future, rather than applying old precedents that lead into a path that we'll end up regretting down the road, no matter how reasonable and just it is now.